


H2O Water Spirit

by Sauou



Category: Banana Bus Squad
Genre: Dead but Still Alive?, Death, Drowning, Gen, Ghosts, Mentions of Death, Spirits, Suicide, afterdeath, and cartoonz is just along for the ride, hanged
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-06-10 10:09:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6952375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sauou/pseuds/Sauou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Are you a ghost..?” Cartoonz asks, not quite sure he isn’t still dreaming.</p><p>“I’m a water spirit,” the being corrects.</p><p>The night is long and heavy and all Cartoonz can make out of him is blue light, and something heavy that hangs off of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Cartoonz woke to the softest sounds of scratches at the back porch door.

“Its that damn cat again,” he mutters to himself. “I don’t know how he keeps getting out.”

Stretching and popping his shoulders as he walks to the back door and he’s so tired he first thinks the soft faded blue light reflected under the door frame is from the moon.

But he opens the door, and standing there is neither animal nor human.

But a being bathed in gentle blue light, glowing from within. Water dripping everywhere.

“Are you a ghost..?” Cartoonz asks, not quite sure he isn’t still dreaming.

“I’m a water spirit,” the being corrects.

The night is long and heavy and all Cartoonz can make out of him is blue light, and something heavy that hangs off of him.

The spirit looks vaguely human.

“Are you having me on? This is a joke, yeah? There’s no lakes or anything for miles.” Cartoonz tries to look menacing but its just started raining and he’s only wearing a pair of Captain America sweat pants.

Not the scariest thing out there.

The spirit lifts its head, water still going everywhere like the being is made of it.

“Hey can I come in,” he asks. “Its kind of cold out here.”

And just walks inside, just like that, without waiting for an answer.

“What are you doing here?” Cartoonz asks, and shuts the back door. A solid breeze was blowing in from across the yard.

“Well..” the being starts, bent over in Cartoonz kitchen and raiding his fridge. “We’re all supposed to haunt something and I picked a pool but.”

Popping open a soda can and turning face Cartoonz. “Good God man, you do NOT want to know how many people pee in a pool.”

Cartoonz just crosses his arms. “I thought you said you were a water spirit. Now you’re a ghost?”

“Ain’t it the same thing?” The guy shrugs and drinks the soda.

Under the light of the kitchen the spirit looks less like a strange and unusual thing, and more like some guy who fell in a lake with all his clothes on, dripping water and seaweed everywhere, still fainting glowing blue.

His feet, now that Cartoonz is looking, somewhat transparent. As if they weren’t really there.

“Are you a ghost?” Cartoonz whispers and takes a step back.

“Hey now,” the water guy says, waving his arms. “Let’s not go name calling here. Did I call you fox-face when I came in? No, I didn’t. So theres no reason to..” He sighs and puts the can on the counter.

“Alright,” he admits. “So I’m dead. Big deal. Everyone dies eventually. Just because I got my leg stuck under the pier-”

“You’re really dead?” Cartoonz mutters, a bit spooked.

“I thought we established that?” The guy says, and turns to dig through Cartoonz’s leftovers. “Name’s Delirious by the way.”

“Woah woah,” Cartoonz tries to stop him. “Not my pie, I was saving that.”

“For what, a rainy occasion?” Delirious asks, gesturing to the brewing storm outside. “Or were you going to wait until we both were dead?”

“H2O,” Cartoonz warns.

“Delirious,” the dead guy getting water all over his kitchen floor corrects, digging into the pie with his fingers.

“Fine.” Cartoonz just shakes his head and pulls open a drawer. “Let me get the forks atleast. Who knows where your hands have been.”

“.. Good point,” Delirious relents and accepts a fork. Then shares the pie.


	2. extra scene

“Hey is that an Xbox?” Delirious grins and darts straight for it.

“Ah, no!” Cartoonz cries, and grabs his arm.

“No, its not an Xbox?” Delirious asks, confused.

“No,” Cartoonz corrects. “You’re dripping water literally everywhere and I just got that!”

“Oh yeah..” Delirious grins. “Forgot I was doing that. Happens automatically when it rains.” And just like that, the water is gone.

Without a word or a whisper, and all Cartoonz is left with is some guy standing there who looks a little blue, as if they’ve been out in the cold too long.

“Hey, you’ve got Mortal Kombat?” Delirious asks and starts digging through the games. “Lets play! I’ve always wanted to play with someone.”

Cartoonz just shakes his head. “You’re such a freeloader. But, yeah.” Sitting down next to him and pulling out said game to Delirious’ delight.

“Lets play.”


	3. Chapter 3

Somber faces on the walls, quiet pictures framed in shadows and regret, the lines edged by darkness.

“I was hung from that very tree,” He says in a matter-of-fact manner, gesturing past the portraits to a window.

To a large willow tree, branches drooping in upon themselves.

“Years and years ago,” He muses, walking down the hall and touching the paneling as if it was a friend who could remember.

“Are you a spirit too then?” Cartoonz whispers softly. He’s not sure exactly why they’re here, but Delirious insisted and so they drove hours and hours to reach this once-abandoned house.

“Ah, no.” He admits. “I’m a homewrecker.” With a devil-may-care grin that, obscured by his scarf as it is, still manages to glint into his eyes. 

That particular sparkle, the squint of someone who always find the humor in things, lights up the man’s pale, slightly ashen face.

“Call me Ohm,” He says, with a smile.

Standing there in a hallway covered in dust, edges of the noose visible beneath the handkerchief around his neck.

Delirious at Cartoonz’s back, dripping water everywhere again, his skin as blue as ever. Picking at the seaweed on his clothes and plucking it out, though it comes back again just as fast, as if he is growing it.

“I guess..” Cartoonz starts, then glances behind him at Delirious. “I should probably invite you over for pizza or something? Since you let me in your house?”

Ohm laughs. “Pizza sounds great, actually! Yeah, let’s go get some!”

“See?” Delirious calls out with delight. “I told you he was cool. Hey Ohm,” leaning over Cartoonz’s shoulder and soaking the man’s shirt. “Just wait until you see all the games he has, it’s awesome!”

“Better than pong?” Ohm wonders, and walks with them down the hall and to the front door.

“Oh, much better! Just you wait,” Delirious giggles and links arms with Cartoonz and Ohm. “We’re going to have so much fun!”


	4. Chapter 4

“You don’t see that boy standing on top of the building?” Delirious asks over the repeating words of the television reporter. A mantra that cycles again and again throughout the room, one they’re heard so many times today that it’s become nothing but background noise.

“There’s no one there,” Cartoonz confirms, shaking his head and watching the news footage replay as he eats his dinner, sitting sideways across the couch so he can keep an eye on the boy pacing through his kitchen.

Its been the same story all day, non-stop across every station.

“..this morning at about five am,” the television continues. “A young man, leapt from the roof of this mall and plummeted to his death. Reasons as yet unknown but..”

Delirious is standing in the kitchen as wet as ever, dripping seaweed and soaking water so far across the tiles that the puddle has risen three inches already and is threatening to soak the carpet in the living room.

“He looks unhappy,” Delirious mutters, so softly he must be talking to himself, and then louder over the reporter’s droning voice, “We should visit him!”

“What?” Is all Cartoonz can say. “But there’s no one there..” And then he realizes. “You’re flooding my house.”

Delirious’ skin is already a deep blue, the pale darkness of underwater death and his limbs are beginning to swell from all the liquid. There is so much seaweed everywhere, it is growing on him, so much is falling.

“You’re really distressed about this, huh?” Cartoonz mutters. “.. alright then. We’ll go. But you’re sitting in the back of the truck, I’m not getting stalled in the middle of the road because you flooded the engine again.”

The color lifts a little from Delirious’ skin as he begins to smile. “That was just one time.”

.

By the time they reach the Cross Creek mall the sun has already begun to set and is casting a red and orange haze all over the sky. Hazy and somewhat translucent, dreamlike.

Cartoonz wants to make a joke about Delirious just wanting to come because of the mall’s name, but he knows better. The truth of the matter is though they’ve come, Delirious hasn’t stopped leaking any less, and all down the road all the way back to where they’ve started from is a trail of water.

A river through the streets leading home.

The news crews have all left the scene, and all that remains of the tragedy that took place earlier this morning is a bare spot on the lawn where the grass refuses to bounce back from.

Splatters of blood across the sidewalk and the concrete, like a poorly drawn sketch. And there he parks the truck, leans out the window looking up high.

Higher, and higher still. To the very top of the building where, true to word, a boy is sitting still.

.

The back door of the mall was locked fast, but Ohm’s taught him a few tricks in the last few days (interesting man that guy) and Cartoonz soon makes short work of it.

The building is deserted, and almost eerie with how much empty space there is. The air is still and stifling, dust particles linger in the patches of light and on he moves.

Past store after store, doors shut and barred with rolling metal cages pulled from the ceiling. Insides dark and haunted and he wants nothing to do with them, he’s just looking for the stairs, they’ve got to be around here somewhere.

At the end of the long hall, just beyond a shoe store and right before the next clothing outlet starts he finally spots the door he’s looking for.

[Authorized Personal Only] and dull gray painted steel greets him, but he pulls out the Bobby pins from his back pocket and drops to his knees and starts on the lock. No hesitation, not once questioning what he’s going to say to the kid. (Why he’s come.)

And there must be a million and one stairs from the bottom floor to the roof, and Cartoonz is half sure he’s died just from climbing all them when he reaches he last flight.

The overhead lights are all off and the air is thick with dust and silence its been untouched for so long. He climbs the last few steps in just as total darkness as the first, sliding one hand along the wall to keep his bearings and moving slowly.

The faint light from built-in windows on the doors he passes the only illumination.

.

The boy is sitting on the edge of the roof, just as he’s been doing all day. Legs dangling over the edge and kicking freely with abandon.

(Every day, actually. This was his favorite spot to sit and think for the longest time.)

The wind is pushing at his face, trying to force him back fully onto the roof but he’s determined to stay. Here he can see past the horizon.

He can see forever.

He watches the truck pull into the parking lot long after the last news van has left, a certain sense of detachment about him. Just another onlooker, come to gawk.

It still doesn’t feel real what he’s done, but he’s gone and done it, there’s no coming back now.

He’s dead.

.

The service door is kicked open behind him, and out comes a swearing beast of a man. Too damn tall, too much beard, and with no reason to have climbed all the way up here.

Who are you, he wants to say. But instead asks, “Why have you come?”

To stare, of course. To watch and judge and laugh, just like everyone else before him, this Vanoss knows without a doubt.

But the man remains silent, merely huffing his way to sit (with great care as not to fall himself) on the ledge next to Vanoss.

He is quiet for the longest time. Staring down at his truck parked sideways in the parking lot right next to where Vanoss fell.

(Water is still leaking from the truck bed, and from this high up Cartoonz can’t actually see Delirious, but the tickling river has become a pond and is spreading still.)

“My friend,” Cartoonz starts. “He said we should come see you.”

Vanoss scoffs and turns away. Of course, he knew it all along.

“Sometimes..” the man mutters. “Sometimes I just can’t see the things he sees, but I see you here and that’s enough isn’t it?”

Vanoss is quiet, staring at this man. ‘Enough’..?

He looks down at the pickup truck and remembers all the people who were gathered down there earlier. Not a one looked up at him, acknowledged him sitting there.

Not a one waved to him, called out to him..

Of course, you fool. The words are muttered inside his head but visible in the frown scrawled across his face and furrowed brows. Of course they couldn’t see you, you’re dead.

“Cartoonz.” Comes from the man next to him, and when Vanoss turns from his self loathing to look, there is a hand outstretched and waiting for him. “That’s my name, you can call me that.”

He hesitates.

But reluctantly accepts the handshake. “Vanoss,” he gives.

“Like the engine part?” Cartoonz says so quickly and eagerly that Vanoss has to pull back just a bit to get the full scope of this man.

“Yeah..” he admits. “The same.”


	5. Chapter 5

 

His shirt is red, deep and dark and soaked straight through the fabric with blood so much blood everywhere on him except, when Vanoss turns to look Cartoonz in the eye, except his skin.

He is covered in blood but, on his skin, there isn’t a scratch.

The boy’s face is as perfect and flawless as the day it was born, and it must be criminal to be so pretty. Cartoonz sulks to himself, grumbling about injustices as the light catches his face _just right_ and only proves his point further.

“Something wrong?” Vanoss blinks, confused.

“You,” Cartoonz mutters, and dusts off the back of his pants as he stands up. “Come on, lets get going before the damn fool worries himself sick.”

Vanoss just stares at him, and makes himself even more comfortable on the ledge. Determined to be as obstinate as possible, he glares back a little and grins when he says, “No.”

Cartoonz stops dusting himself off to look at the boy again and, “You ass,” he breathes. 

“I’m beginning to like it up here,” Vanoss remarks. “Very nice view after all, you know?”

“Mm.” Cartoonz turns to stare off over the horizon to where the last pieces of sunset have wandered into. There is only deep blue darkness over the earth now, starlight and night. “It is pretty.”

Then he pushes Vanoss over the edge.

“ _MOTHERFUCK--!”_ Is all of Vanoss’ scream Cartoonz can hear before the boy has fallen down into indistinct howling and yelling.

Vanoss splatters on the ground, and even from up here Cartoonz can see the blood spreading across the pavement. He spares a moment to stare _all the way_ down the many flights and stories and consider.. just for a moment..

(Those were a _lot_ of damn stairs, after all.)

But he relents, and turns around to take the long way back down. His legs already tired and sore from walking just at the thought of all the steps he’d have to redo.

.

By the time Cartoonz has huffed and puffed his way through the back door, sweating up a storm and swearing like an old drunk, Vanoss has well good and dusted himself off and gotten curious about the pool of water in the back of Cartoonz’s truck.

What kind of man drives around with a bed of water in the back of their truck anyways?

And he is leaning over the railing, peering inside at the muddy pool there, and poking the algae crawling up and over the sides.

Something moves just beneath the surface, so murky and obscenely dark that he can’t even see the bottom, just how long has this water been sitting here for?

There-!

Vanoss reaches out, hesitant, but dying with curiosity.

Something darts away from his hand and he shifts closer to see better its..

Its only a moment, but its long and dark and the shape the form is unmistakable, _Cartoonz has a **body** in the back of his truck!_

Vanoss steps back, his still heart beating again, the blood is pumping in him and black marks streak across this clothes, there is so much blood everywhere, (so much blood, wings across the pavement, he could almost fly, he swore..) he steps back again and looks at Cartoonz stumbling to him.

“What kind of man are you?” He mutters, but Cartoonz doesn’t hear.

“What are you doing in there?” Cartoonz calls out and leans on the railing. “Are you .. swimming?” And pokes at the dark figure in the water. 

.

“You’ve got to come up for air sometime.” Cartoonz calls out a million miles away at the bed of the truck, his voice distant and blurred on the other side.

_Standing on the end of the pier, his toes dangling over the edge the wind shoving at him and ripping up waves. Phone balanced between the tips of his fingers as he holds it high, camera ready, staring through it at the horizon._

_There’s a storm coming in from the east, and Delirious just can’t help himself, can’t keep from seeking it out. The dark clouds, the churning water underneath his toes. The thunderclap just, out of sight._

_Ever since he was little, he sought out the rain. It soothed him and calmed his soul, like a lullabye.  
_

Vanoss’ foot shifts and he takes another step back from the truck, almost out of the line of site from the figure swirling beneath the murky depths. Who is this man that can see the dead? That sought him out?

Is he a collector of lost souls? A reaper? Or something even more terrifying? A ( _demon)_ thing that walks the night and stares out from the darkness, eyes glowing red.

_The rain is soaking through his clothes, but his phone’s case is guaranteed to be water-proof so he pays no mind to the extra weight that sags against him in his shirt and coat, his shoes so heavy that his feet can barely pick them up when he tries to step away from the edge._

_The thunder booms across his eardrums, deafening him. Lightning flashes, brilliant, the faint fragments of starlight completely erased for the false light of faux-midday on the horizon.  
_

_Sudden, erupt._

_The sea shakes, surges and thrives._

“Who are you?” Vanoss asks again, head lowered, eyes straight and steady on the threat before him.

Cartoonz blinks and looks up at him. Confused, and not really understanding what he’s getting at. Vanoss knows what his name is. 

“What do you mean?” Turning away from the water, one hand still on the bed of the truck.

_There is a beast in the waters. An animal rolling between the waves that crash against the dock, making the pier rock back and forth. Slick, slippery wood beneath his feet groaning and grumbling like a living thing._

_Delirious lowers his phone and watches the black clouds outlined in light as lightning strikes again, and again._

_Thunder **BOOMS** from right above his head and he flinches it’s so close the sound is an explosion all around him his ears are ringing the sky is black the wind is pushing against his back and his clothes are so heavy his body won’t move._

His hands loosely curl into fists, he may not be much of a fighter, but Vanoss is pretty sure he can put up enough of a challenge to make some distance between them if push comes to shove.

“How can you see the dead?” He demands. “Why did you come here? Why did you seek me out? Who are you!”

Teeth biting beneath his lips as he breathes deep.

_He slips._

_The wood is slick, his socks slide inside his shoes, the storm is raging all around him and down he goes, wind ripping through his clothes and tangling him all up into pieces as the water swallows him whole._

_The waves close over his head, and he is in darkness._

_Everything is quiet, everything is cold. Everything is still._

“I told you--!” Cartoonz starts but is quickly cut off by a frustrated Vanoss who slashes his hand through the air in clear meaning, _I will have no more!_

“Enough!” Vanoss talks over him, nearly shouting. “Tell me what you are!”

“I’m a human!” Cartoonz calls out, one hand still on the bed of the truck, holding on. Fingers gripping so tightly to the metal that his hand cramps.

_Just one moment._

_Of quiet._

_Before the current catches underneath his shirt, slips around his limbs his arms his legs and he’s all twisted up in the dark in the cold cold depths beneath the pier. Beneath the storm and the sea and the raging fury screaming all around him as he’s slammed-_

_BAM-_

_into the thick wooden pillars standing like tree trunks so steady under the water so murky so dark and cold._

_He can’t feel his fingers, he can’t feel his toes. He can’t breathe he’s trying to scream but water only fills his lungs and he’s suffocating down down here in the dark._

_BAM._

_His shoes are too heavy, he kicks, he tries, but they are rocks tied to his feet and down he goes._

_Drowning._

_Floundering, trying to swim, trying to find a way out of the depths but there is too much. There’s no way up._

_Cold. He’s slammed back and forth beneath the dock, his shoulders his back his waist, splinters catching underneath his skin as he slips, as the currents catch him up and swallow him whole._

_Down.  
_

_Thrown against the sandy bottom of the shore, he is panicking, barely holding on to anything all he can do is drift.  
_

“Don’t give me that bullshit!” Vanoss yells. “You can see the dead, you came to find me, _why?_ “

Bouncing on the balls of his feet as spins, faces the truck straight on. “This-” He gestures wildly. “This _body_ you have here, I don’t know what you’re doing with it, but you’re not going to do it to me!”

Cartoonz can’t breathe, the words won’t come to him he doesn’t know what to say.

_He swallows._

_Sand scratches against his face, his lungs fill with water, his legs catch in the dark in the tangled vines of seaweed growing at the base of the pier so far down into the dark and cold that there’s no way out._

_His mouth opens, and he breathes._

_Water._

_Swallowing again, and again in desperation._

Cartoonz seethes, stands on the tips of his toes and bites his tongue the words daring to rumble and roll on out of him ( _He still doesn’t know what Vanoss is about but this is all bullshit)._ As he turns and reaches into the back of his truck, the metal railing pressing against his chest, making it hard to breathe as he leans over the edge and reaches through the murky water.

Hand grasping and searching, looking for that one. The one thing that he knows can begin to make sense of whatever is going on here.

_The waves nudge against his body, almost gentle this far into the depths, but he can’t move. His clothes weigh him down, he is too heavy, too far gone to fight._

_His mind wanders._

_He falls, as if into a dream. Sleeping, down down in the dark in the deep and murky depths beneath the pier beneath the storm as the night rolls on in._

Delirious is slick, slippery as if Cartoonz is holding onto a bundle of seaweed as he catches the spirit’s shirt beneath his fingers and pulls.

Dragging him bodily up, and out of the bed of the truck. Water falling everywhere and completely soaking through Cartoonz’s shirt and pants with mud and algae.

Vanoss is still ready to flee, two steps from the grassy spot he fell into when he died and half an inch from sprinting like (what’s left of) his life depends on.

The figure is half a head shorter than Cartoonz, and is made of water.

Leaking, his skin his body is made of it as he opens his eyes ( _dark as the night, as the unseen bottom of the lake)_ and looks up. Staring straight at, and through, Vanoss.

“Delirious,” Cartoonz speaks around them and shakes the figure’s shoulder.

_Waking up._

_Already dead, feet ensnared beneath the dock, beneath the pier. The storm already over he’s lost all track of time all he knows is that he wants to leave._

_The seaweed won’t let go, so he gets up and takes it with him._

_Rising, from beneath the surface, breaking out of the still waters the shore just in sight as he walks. Out of the sea, and into the world of the living. Water falling from him in torrents as he steps, from the ocean and onto land._

_Walking, trying to find his way home._

_“Delirious!”_ Cartoonz calls out and shakes him again. He is way out of depth here, he doesn’t know what’s going on why he’s really here other than Delirious insisted that they come and now he’s stuck.

Twisted lumps growing on Vanoss’ back from beneath his still-red shirt, the boy’s eyes glowing eerily sickly orange. Patterns scratching against his cheeks as he puffs himself up and slides his feet apart, taking a stance.

Cartoonz steps back, hesitant. He is more than a little afraid, he is only human after all. He doesn’t know how to deal with the dead like this.

A grumble, a gravely noise comes rolling out from beneath the water, bubbles just under the sheet still falling in front of his lips as Delirious swallows, breathes, and tries again.

“ _ **Vanoss.**_ ”

The voice is faintly familiar and makes him pause. It sounds like the scream of the sea, waves crashing against the shore but, beneath that..

Delirious clears his throat, closes his eyes, and breathes again. Deep and slow. Taking in air.

The water falling off of him slows down when he opens his eyes again, looking straight at Vanoss. _Baby blue irises._

“Vanoss,” he repeats. “.. hello.” Beginning to look almost human again.

The voice is dead familiar and Vanoss stills for a moment, trying to remember.

Seaweed sticking to his brow just beneath his hair as his face begins to form. He is still water, but he begins to take a shape again.

“I bet you never thought we’d met like this, huh?” He laughs, and _that cinches it_.

That laugh. A hundred thousand men could laugh a hundred thousand laughs and only one would stand out like this one.

“Delirious?” Vanoss asks, completely lost. “Is that you?” Beneath those shifting layers of muck and grime and murky liquid that flow over something that barely begins to look human.

Delirious breathes, deep and even, trying to calm himself down, closing his eyes then opening them again with a small chuckle that ripples over the trickling water that begins to shape his body.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I was ..”

His face is almost undistinguishable, it’s half murky water and drips off of him in torrents. His body is less flesh and more loosely kept pond scum, held together barely by algae and seaweed and he can’t quite get together the thoughts in his head enough to come out so he just laughs and hopes for the best.

Its..

Impossible.

Well, stranger things have happened, Vanoss supposes. You could die and then live to tell about it.

But someone forming of water from the bed of a truck? Someone that he knows pretty well for never having actually met them. That’s a little strange, yeah.

“I don’t.. “ He begins, but trails off as Delirious and Cartoonz both look at him, silent and waiting.

He breathes deep, and the dark red of his clothes lessens a little, the lumps bulging from beneath the back of his shirt softening and beginning to smooth out. “I don’t know what’s going on here.”

Looks at the mall, glancing up, up to the top where the wind pushes and the light hits _just right_ just before dawn where he sat where he fell.

Then turns away, confronts the two of them. Breathing in even, heavy breathes that take away the lacing patterns tracing over his skin. 

“I don’t know what this is, but.” He blinks, and the sickly light is gone from his eyes. “But I trust you, Delirious.”

Becoming human again.

Delirious’ breath still gurgles from beneath the water, but he slowly emerges. “I’m sorry,” He apologizes again.

“I saw you up there, and I started remembering..

I didn’t want you to get lost too. It took me _so long_ to find someone who could see me, I didn’t want you getting lost too.”

His hands slip into the pockets of his pants, a nervous gesture as he closes his eyes and concentrates. Remembers to breathe, to control himself.

The water starts disappearing. Vanishing as if it was never there to begin with, evaporating from the ground the pavement the road leading them back home.

Off of Delirious until he’s standing there, murky and muddy but human. Seaweed sticking to his temple as he blinks.

Just two guys, standing there silent and waiting. Cartoonz in the background, thumb tucked into the waistband of his pants as he watches.

“Ah,” says the one he knows, skin still just a little too blue. “Hello.”

“Hi,” Vanoss greets again, slowly. “How are you?” Color beginning to return to him now that the deep red of his blood has begun to recede from his clothes.

The boy grins. “I’m dead, Vanoss.”

And just like that, the worry slips away and he begins to believe, in earnest, that this is _actually_ his friend and that they are really meeting like this.

Dead, at the base of a mall. 

“Delirious?” 

“Yeah,” Delirious grins, so wide his teeth are spiting his smile into something almost feral. “How’s this for a face reveal?”

.

And it’s almost a half hour later when Delirious has finished telling Vanoss all about the things he couldn’t say before. 

“I drowned,” Delirious nods. “And now, storms..” Not wanting to complete his sentence because every time he thinks about the thunder, the sea rolling beneath his feet his gut clenches and all he can taste is water, all he can see is the pressing black.

“I’ve got something to show you,” Vanoss says carefully, and tugs his shirt up over his head and turns around.

There. On his back, just on his shoulder blades are strange little growths. Gnarled twisted flesh that almost resembles half-grown bones and muscle and tiny tufts of something that closely resembles..

Wings.

Or the barest beginning of broken ones, if nothing else.

Delirious doesn’t speak, Cartoonz still the silent observer keeping quiet in the background, afraid to interrupt. Not sure exactly what to do or say.

“I fell,” Vanoss announces. “I tried to fly I thought I could escape.”

His back heaving as he takes in deep lungfuls of air, searching for something that’s almost impossible for him to describe.

His shirt knotted up in his fingers as he looks down at it, facing away from the two of them.

Its a terrible thing to admit, a terrible thing to fall from, but so he has. And when Vanoss turns back around, tugging his head back through his shirt and adjusting his sleeves the water is gone. As if it never existed.

.

He has to be coaxed into the truck’s cab with Cartoonz. 

Delirious adamantly arguing with Vanoss, “this is _Cartoonz._ You’ve played with him before. He’s not some demonic creature!”

But, even though he relents and gives in, Vanoss keeps one hand on the latch for the door the whole drive back to Cartoonz’s house. Watching the other man out of the corner of his eye.

.

“Hey guys?” Ohm asks the empty house. “Where’d you go?”

Setting down his bags of groceries on the kitchen counter and looking around. “Sure, send me out to get food while you go take off on some grand adventure. Well, we’ll see who gets the last laugh!”

And he grabs a bag of potato chips and jumps onto the couch, grabbing the remote and turning on My Little Pony, laughing manically to himself the whole while.


End file.
